Setting up the new [old] aquarium

We've had the tank for a long time - since we lived in Mobile, and that's been 1994 or so. We had it set up for a while here, but when the last fish died a few years ago, we just never got it back running again. Well, we [I] got all the gravel and rocks washed, and filled it back up. Filter runs, heaters run. YAY! Go to the pet store on Saturday - each kid is allowed to pick out ONE fish. Gotta let the aquarium cycle, and 3 fish is a reasonable start-up load for a large aquarium.






Well. See those little silver dots in the upper left corner of the aquarium? Less than 24 hours after release into the tank, the female molly is popping out baby fishies. A few more than 20 so far, as best as we can count. They're cute, and growing fast. Hopefully the big fish won't eat them all!

Great giveaway

Oodles of Amy Butler scraps and a cute bag pattern over at Sheree's Alchemy. Stop by and register - you can always share with me if you win :)

Peach-Mango Sorbet

I was going to call it "Orange Sherbet", but the Lovely Daughter insists that it's not orange. I made a bunch of blocks this weekend, but I don't think I'm caught up on the 9-patch challenge. Closer, but not there yet.

I was only able to get that much done because of this:

Everybody seemed to be lazy on Sunday. Possibly because the Small Man was starting to get sick, but it's not clear yet that he's germy. Maybe just ate too fast.

I believe I've confessed here before my sad addiction to scraps. Just love them. Am entranced by them. Well, I went to the new location of G Street Fabrics and managed to leave with only two bags of scraps (mostly NOT quilting fabric, BTW) and a nice not-quite 2-yard piece of backing fabric.

Rae Gun Ramblings: Giveaway: Fabric Bundle

Hurry!!! deadline is tonight!

Rae Gun Ramblings: Giveaway: Fabric Bundle

Graduations

I have one moving from middle to high school, and one from elementary to middle school. (Small man wants to know, "When can I have a graduation?" Next year, big guy - time for kindergarten then.)

The Lovely Daughter:


The Mid-Kid (sorry for the blurry photo - it's the best one I have):


Boy, it's trite, but they grow up so fast!

No quilty photos, despite getting a lot done on my daughter's quilt over the weekend. A few times a year, our guild sponsors a "Sit-n-Sew" at a local University. We get a computer-friendly room, so plenty of outlets. It's a great mini-retreat.

Museum photos

Not very many, since the exhibits we went to see prohibited photography. These are both from the Renwick.

This is me inspecting a carved mahogany sculpture. That "drape"? It's ALL carved wood. I swear the weave of the fabric is carved into the wood.


A Sam Maloof dining set. Swoon.

The Antique Quilt

SO, my boss comes in a couple of weeks ago and says, "M. [his wife] wants to know if you want an antique quilt." So I thought a minute and said, "OF COURSE!"

I'm thinking your average early 20th century quilt, available in your local antique store for $50 or so.

No. He comes in the next day with THIS:






My jaw drops to the floor, but I take it home. The next Monday is our guild meeting, so I take it in to share at show & tell. [TMOTH says to "show off", but we all know quilters like to share.] I jokingly tell them not to say anything if it's valuable, otherwise I'll have to give it back.

The others agree with me - it's mid-19th century and an extraordinarily fine quilt. It needs to see someone for conservation, and I do need to get it appraised. Sigh. I'm hoping against hope it'll only be worth a couple of hundred dollars and I'll be able to keep it.

Blogging before dinner - my UFO list

TMOTH has taken the mid-kid off to karate, the Lovely Daughter is staying with a friend so she can ride with her to the field trip tomorrow (YEAH! No getting up at 4 am!!), and Small Man is playing with Legos. Dinner will be easy, so I have a few minutes to think about my UFO list.

My internet buddies, the Prolific Online Quilters, are having a summer Waun-a-Finish challenge, and the first step is to post our UFOs.

1. Mid-kid's chess quilt - still lots more applique to do
2. The Lovely Daughter's cat window quilt - much progress here, mostly due to ...
3. Crazy Mom's one 9-patch a day quilt-a-long
4. Love's the Only House mini-quilt
5. My mom's 9-patch quilt
6. Flannel plaid quilt
7. Birds-in-the-Air quilt (BTW - 5, 6, and 7 are all inherited UFOs. They count, right?)
8. Baby quilt for Laresha's baby
9, 10, 11. Toddler quilts (x 3 - new baby, 4yo, and 2yo grand-boys of my boss)

I'll also probably start a few new ones as well - I'm not particularly stressed by the UFO level as long as I'm working on something ;^)

A Lovely Day Today

I took about half the day off today - worked early am and late pm but took the middle part off.

TMOTH and I went downtown.

First, we went to the Renwick (my personal favorite of the Smithsonian museums - it's really small and quiet and has different stuff) to see the Greene & Greene exhibit which ends Sunday without the benefit of children nagging at us. Ahhhhhh. Wonderful, wonderful, although I had the privilege of visiting the Gamble House in Pasadena about 15 years ago, and all of these kinds of things are SO much more wonderful in context.

Then we hopped one Metro stop back toward home and had lunch at a little Italian restaurant. Yummy.

Then, the Textile Museum. Somehow, I've never managed to visit before, despite having lived hear ~11 years now. They have an exhibit running on Amish Quilts. Oh. My. Goodness. I honestly couldn't pick a favorite, or even favorites. They were all just so amazing. If any of you are going to be in the DC area between now and Labor Day, I highly recommend it.

A Good Weekend

All in all, it was a pretty good weekend.

The 9-patches are doing their work - I also got more of the 12-patches for the Lovely Daughter's quilt bordered and now have half of them done. Then because I feel guilty about working on hers and not the mid-kid's, I also got three or four more chess pieces basted.

But now I'm sitting on the floor cutting out more 2.5" squares. The only thing on TV right now is Sahara - a chick flick based on a Clive Cussler novel. How goofy is that? I'll also need to think about another quilt for Small Man - he asks me every time he sees me working on one of the others when will I make him another quilt? I asked him what he wanted, and he said "Stars."

I managed to make all of the kids happy this weekend (at different times, of course). Small Man got to go to the park while waiting to pick his big sister up from her painting class and got some snazzy new kid-size gardening tools, the Mid Kid and TMOTH got to go to see Star Trek, and the Lovely Daughter got to go to the mall with a friend, got a new swimsuit, and didn't have to go see Star Trek (she went with a friend to see Night at the Museum and spent the rest of the day at the pool). I managed to get a miniscule amount of the crap on the playroom floor picked up and put away.

No beans planted, but maybe later in the week...

A finish this weekend

But no photo yet because I left my camera out in the rain :(

Hopefully it will dry out OK. It was the "old" camera, which uses the funky cards that don't fit in the printer slot.

This was a log cabin top that my grandmother pieced in the 80s. It went home with my baby brother today.

The next OPPIG (Other People's PIG) is likely my mom's log cabin. MY log cabin has slowed due to the weekend, but is still lurching along. It helps that I do at least two when I do them - the chain piecing and pressing seems easier that way, actually, than one at a time.

Lessons learned

- It IS possible to stay ahead of the 4-year-old who wants to take out everything you put away (and also to sneak some things in the trash and not have him notice).
- Even when you poke holes in them, sometimes baked potatoes explode in the oven.
- When you use Beth's roll recipe and have your bread machine set on "quick bread" instead of "dough", you get bread that is very, very, very dense - but still edible.
- When your nine-patches want to be set with orange sashing, maybe you should listen to them.
- Survivor really is awful, and WHY is it on when Cold Case is supposed to be on? (Okay, that's a question, but the lesson is not to go sit at the computer until you're sure the program you thought would be on is really on.)
- Hiyao Miyazaki really is a genius, even after watching his movies over and over and over again.

Movie time

When you have a 4-year-old, you have to accept that they like repetition. The same food. The same books. The same movies. I believe that we have watched Nausicaa every day now for the past 3 or 4 days.



I don't mind so much. It's just so much eye candy, the Miyazaki movies. Actually, it'll be nice when he's old enough to watch Princess Mononoke - that ones a little bit too much right now. And our copy of Howl's Moving Castle has some bad skips; need a new one.

No quilting likely tonight, unless it's after the boys are up to bed. TMOTH took the mid-kid to Boy Scouts, and they won't be back until bedtime.

Two more 9-patches

Only 9 am, and I'm caught up. Yay!

What's the big deal about 9-patches, right? For me, it's not so much the 9-patch, but the simple act of getting started. I know a lot of you don't have quilter's inertia, but I do. I can sew in the playroom (all alone) or on the dining room table (which means getting set up). Mostly, I go the dining room table route, because I like piecing on the Featherweight. I find that once I've sewn that simple 9-patch, I have the machine all ready and can work on something else.

It's effective for me.

Happy Mother's Day, everybody.

9-patches

I've joined a quilt-a-long over at Crazy Mom Quilts. Make a 9-patch every day, and have a quilt done by summer.

I was a little late getting started, but I have six so far:


I like how some of them are contrasty and some are not. I'm cutting more squares tonight. Makes good use of those scrap strips! I'm also trimming some strips to work on the baby/no longer a baby quit for my boss's grandkids.

The "source" 9-patch uses white sashing; I think that's unlikely for me. Good practice for finishing up my mom's 9-patch, which is sashed with blue-and-white seersucker.

Recovering

Urgh. I caught a bad cold last Friday and am only just now starting to recover.

I went to guild meeting last night anyway! Our speaker was Carol Taylor, and she spoke on working in series.

It really showed how photography is important - one of the quilts in particular was nothing on the photo but absolutely spectacular in person.

And the best thing? She had Aurifil thread on sale at the meeting! I was able to stock up!

Thrift shop score

I found a brand-new Rowenta Compact Steam iron yesterday for $7.49. Woo-hoo!

Cheetah band-aid

The Small Man showing off his boo-boo finger (tee-hee).

I hate Kidz Bop

Last weekend, the mid-kid went on his first Boy Scout camp-out. Before leaving, he and TMOTH went to McDonald's for dinner, and got this cool talking Melman. Well, all Small Man could talk about until lunchtime the next day was what toy HE would get at lunch at McDonald's. Did we get a cool Madagascar toy? NO. We got a Kidz Bop CD.

So for the past almost-week, whenever we're in the car - "Can we listen to my CD?" Can I just say that "Stick With You" is NOT my favorite song? But, what ya gonna do when someone like this is in the backseat, happy because his "favorite song" is on:

Checkup #1

I scheduled all the kids' checkups right in a row - the Small Man this afternoon, the mid-kid in the morning, and the Lovely Daughter tomorrow afternoon.

Small man is 43" and 47 pounds - 95th and 100th percentiles. BIG boy.

Quilt show - Friendship Star Quilters

Our guild show was this weekend - I didn't take very many pictures.
My guild challenge quilt:


My donation quilt:


and a few that I liked:
A Gardner's Sampler, by Pat Vasaio


Jeweled Sky, by Susan Sellers (the vertical black one)
and Busy Lady, by Barbara Kilby


Time to go wake up TMOTH!

Saturday Frenzy

Soon to be 9:30 - wake up The Lovely Daughter and make sure she eats something
10:00 - take The lovely Daughter to the Arts Barn for class/return home
11:30 - take Small Man to lunch and stop by the quilt show
1:30 - pick The Lovely Daughter up from class, get her lunch, and drive to the Pinewood Derby
1:30 - hopefully not too late - chase the Small Man around while listening to The Lovely Daughter complain about being forced to be at the Pinewood Derby
- If before 6, return to quilt show
- If after 6, return home
Have dinner and collapse.

What's your day like? And I KNOW all of you at the quilt retreat are having a great time - I'm jealous.

Eek...only a few more days.

The quilt show starts at noon on Friday. Am I ready? No, of course not!

The info board is mostly done. I need a few more bits for that.

I need a placard saying "Children must have parent's permission to sew."

I need to get some more pincushion squares sewn up and turned.

I need to thread a bunch of needles with different colors of thread.

I cut a LOT of squares this weekend, and got the peek-n-seek list done and ready to print; and went by Office Depot this morning to get the assigned blue paper for it.

I'd really like to get a piece partially quilted, so they can see the process.

We'll see.

Day 2 of Spring Break

Today we went to the Baltimore Aquarium; dolphins and sharks and lots and lots of turtles.

Yesterday was the Natural History Museum downtown - butterflies and orchids, yeah! Oh, and all those dinosaur bones.

Tomorrow, we drive to southern Pennsylvania for the Herr's potato chip factory tour (and DH can buy Pennsylvania beer!).

Lois's virtual quilt patch

I've added a purple patch in honor of my MIL on the right. You can add one, too - either click on the patch to go to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI)site, or click here: http://www.alzquilts.org/patch.html

We're NOT going to Indianapolis for spring break this year, and the main reason is Lois's Alzheimer's. She just can't handle having extra people in her house, and she doesn't remember any of us most of the time. AND she's mean to the kids. So we're doing day trips from home, and will be happy and have fun, but not for the reason why.

Thankfully, my fiber is off the hoof

Fun video.

The kids post

One of the reasons I haven't been blogging is my support function for my kids' social lives.

The lovely daughter has started an oil painting class. So far, she's taken to it like a duck to water. She copied a Winslow Homer with foxes for her first try; now she's working on an original design from photos of painted buntings (a request from my mom).


She's awfully fun to be around, most of the time. And she's been known to draw on her shoes.


The middle son, in the past few weeks: (1) won his Cub Scout pack's Pinewood Derby, (2) made and decorated a cake (with only minor adult-oriented help from me) for his CS banquet, (3) moved up from CS to Boy Scouts, and (4) got his half brown/half black belt.

He hates having his picture taken, so I'm surprised I was able to get a couple of good ones.



The Cake:


The small man is still a creature of wonder. When did he get so big?


Just look at those shoes!


Karate at the CS banquet:


On the non-fabric crafting front, I made a King Cake for Mardi Gras:

Bad blogger, again

Well, I did finally get "Florida Dreaming" bound and off for judging. It wasn't picked, though :( We'll see at the show what they were looking for. The final:


"Stars and Stripes (and Butterflies)" is mostly quilted, but it has some black yuck on it that I really hope comes out in the wash, because I DO NOT want to applique stars at this point.

It has simple big stars quilted in the 9-patches, and linear quilting in the borders.

Some giveaways you might want to sign up for:
Over at WonderMommy, you'll find a fabric giveaway:



At Quilting on a Budget, a pattern book. (I really want this one!!)

And a cute, cute basket at Sibling Craftery.

All you blogs with popups? WHY??

WARNING: Politics ahead

Yes, this is mostly a crafts blog. Mostly quilting. Sometimes I digress to brag about the kids or DH, or report on life in general.

However.

Words simply cannot express how happy I am so far with the Obama administration, or how happy I am simply to have a President with a brain.

Just look at this: Executive Order 13505

"For the past 8 years, the authority of the Department of Health and Human
Services, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to fund and
conduct human embryonic stem cell research has been limited by Presidential
actions. The purpose of this order is to remove these limitations on scientific
inquiry, to expand NIH support for the exploration of human stem cell
research, and in so doing to enhance the contribution of America’s scientists
to important new discoveries and new therapies for the benefit of humankind."

Yeah, I get that some people think it's wrong. I don't. My lovely DH has type 1 diabetes. This may offer a potential cure - probably not for him, but for future generations to not have to go through this horrible disease.

Totally not related, but I love the President's signature.

Blue Rainbow

Your rainbow is shaded blue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is says about you: You are a tranquil person. You appreciate friends who get along with one another. You share hobbies with friends and like trying to fit into their routines.

Find the colors of your rainbow at spacefem.com.

Binding color?

What color binding for this?



Options are a dark blue-green, a light blue-green, the turquoise, or the sand color.

If I wasn't already running into size issues, I'd probably not have the binding showing on the front. Not sure I can do that and still have it at least 35" wide.

Apparently my stash isn't as extensive as I thought

No red to speak of.

I have a red/white/blue quilt that I want to border in red/white/blue - I know I have the blue and am pretty sure about the white, but I went looking for red today - all I need is a little more than half a yard - and came up completely empty. Not even a fat quarter to speak of.

Hmph. Just means hand quilting for me tonight.

Wiped out

(This is what I started 2 days ago) The Small Man was up all night last night. No positive strep test yet, just coughing and wheezing and general sickness. We did the last nebulizer at 8 and Motrin at 9; hopefully the combo will keep him asleep tonight. (edit - 2 nights now of sleep. Yay!)

This is one of his creations:


It was much better in context, with all of the other kids' gingerbread men - none of the others had such completely colored in bodies or such precisely placed eyes and buttons. Very particular, my boy.

The lovely daughter found out today she was accepted into the magnet high school - to both of the programs she applied to. Now she has to decide (1) whether to go to her home school or the magnet, and (2) if the magnet, which program (Global Ecology or Humanities). AND I still get to fight with her local high school about her course selection because the stupid counselor wants her to take honors physics and the technology course, because that paperwork has to be turned in by Friday and she has 2 weeks to decide about the magnet. EVEN after she told him we'd discussed it and thought she didn't need to go that route. Argh. (I found out I have to write a letter to attach to the form.)

I did finally get some quilting done this weekend, after tending to the housework pile-up. I have a small pile of "flesh" colored fabrics now, but wound up using this:


to get to this:


I'm frogging the hat - it's just too tall, too much out of proportion. I'm reasonably happy with the rest of it.

Also working on a small piece, just for fun:


AND, cut and paired up pieces for a red/white/blue quilt. But today - a little telework, a little napping.

Blogging friends

“These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”

My old college friend Ruth blessed me with this award in the eon since I last posted. Ruth represents a great deal of what I value from my college education - friends, and the ability to find commonality with individuals who are not like you. Ruth and I are on the opposite ends of many spectra, but we respect the other person and share a deep abiding affection for Mississippi University for Women.

Unfortunately, the current president of the university seems determined to destroy it. I think she may underestimate the tenacity of the alumnae/alumni of this find school.

Anyway. Eight more. Aargh. There's way more than eight of you that I'd happily award this to. Anybody that reads this blog on a semi-regular basis is my friend, as far as I can tell. And the blogs I visit are CERTAINLY not interested in self-aggrandizement. If you want me to name you, I will - but feel free to name yourself.

Why My Husband Married Me

This exchange in our house, last week:

Me: Can you plunge the kitchen sink today? [It's an old house, with old plumbing, crazy previous owners - the plumbing of the kitchen and downstairs bathtub is connected in a not-good way.]

TMOTH: I'll see if I can get to it.

I leave for work and later get this e-mail:

"Kitchen sink is plunged. I broke the faucet. Off to Home Depot to get parts to fix it."

I get home and see this - and busted a gut laughing:





I suppose we'll have to replace it eventually, but it actually works better with the funky stupid sink the previous idiot owners installed.

Happy Birthday, Small Man

My baby turned 4 on Groundhog Day.

He had a blast opening presents:




And got to pick out his own cake and "alphabet" and candles:


What a joy he is.

All better now

One of the advantages of owning an old mechanical machine is that brute force occasionally works to fix things. I took a screwdriver to the tension assembly, fiddled some more with the settings, and the looping problems disappeared. JOY!

Most of the water is now done, I think I need some more sand, and the sky needs to be dealt with. Then, on to applique...anybody out there ever done applique AFTER quilting? I'm thinking about it...

The sewing machine gods must be angry

I've been happily piecing away on my Featherweight, when today it starting looping on the bottom and skipping stitches. I re-threaded, put in a new needle, took the bobbin out and put it back in - still issues. Drat. So I drag the trusty FashionMate downstairs and set it up. SKIPPED STITCHES. Maybe it's just too cold to sew. I'll go cut, I think.

What is up with the clock on Blogger?

The other post was at 12:16 am on Saturday, according to my computer...Blogger thinks it was about 8 pm on Friday?

Wasting time until 1 am so I can buy a damn shirt

TMOTH has been sent to Indianapolis for the weekend. While away, he requested that I upload his shirt design (done) and stay up until the new Woot shirt went on sale to buy it if it was the one he thought was going to be on sale. So I managed to wake up after falling asleep on the pull-out couch with the boys, and am now wasting time with an exercise found on Facebook (thanks, Megan!).

1. Google "[your name] needs":
"Michele needs help adjusting her body regularly, because sitting in one position makes her hips sore, but her body is too weak to move." (Wow. All of my problems certainly pale in comparison to ALS.)

2. Google "[your name] looks like":
"Michele looks like Dennis Rodman in drag." (Not even close.)

3. Google "[your name] likes":
"Michele Likes Cake." (True.)

4. Google "[your name] says":
"Take a look at what Michele says about IPA." (That would be the Institute for Public Administration at the University of Delaware.)

5. Google "[your name] wants":
"Michele wants a demo!" (Rarely. Just tell me what to do and let me figure it out for myself.)

6. Google "[your name] does":
"Michele does Dallas!" (Now, really. Would it be THAT hard to think up an original blog post title occasionally?)

7. Google "[your name] hates":
"Michele hates my new tube socks!" (Depends on WHOSE tube socks we're talking about.)

8. Google "[your name] can":
"Michele can be reached at (812) 988-0198. Her studio is located on Lost Lake Road." (This one is so cool. The link is for an article on Art in Science. Very interesting work, including fiber and mixed media.)

9. Google "[your name] goes":
"Michele Goes to Long Sand Beach" (I wish. It's in the single digits now here.)

10. Google "[your name] is":
"A little Michele is better than none at all." (And some would say better than a lot of Michele.)

11. Google "[your name] loves":
"Michele Loves Halloween.." (Just not as much as Thanksgiving or Christmas. Or Valentines Day.)

Well, that killed almost 15 minutes. If it wasn't so danged cold in the dining room I'd go piece something.

A Start!

I got a good start on the challenge quilt this weekend.

Sand - done
Water - mostly done. It's a little dark - I think I need some more light-to-middle range turquoise.
Sky - Not started, but it shouldn't take long.

I think I need to applique the figure on, then sew over the legs...but I'm pondering doing the applique AFTER quilting the background - anybody have any experience with this?

Godiva hot chocolate

Oh. My. God. The best hot chocolate mix EVER.

How is this crafty?

It was in my goody bag from my quilt guild secret sister!

Catching up

We had a wonderful vacation. Two trips to two beaches, photos from one beach:
The family:


My Beach Boys - these beach photos are pretty true color and will be used to pick fabric for the challenge quilt:


Super-amazing sandcastle:


My lovely daughter in the surf:


We spent a lot of time going through boxes of old stuff, and I came away with some treasures - the original manual for my Featherweight, a buttonholer attachment, and a zig-zag attachment with at least 8 stitch patterns. Plus a LOT of other stuff my brother didn't want - my grandmother was a magpie like me, although we did toss a lot of stuff as well. She clipped recipes from the newspaper - this was in the days before the internet - and probably 95% of those were tossed.

We also went on a gator hunt! My middle son at one time had decided that there were no alligators in the wild, so we went to find one. We saw lots of wood storks, some sandhill cranes, hawks, egrets, herons, and even a Florida deer. And a gator! about 7 feet - DB has yet to send me the grainy photo his photo-binoculars took.

If the Small Man hadn't shared his crud with everybody, it would've been a perfect vacation.

Old photos

I asked my lovely husband to scan a photo of me to use for our upcoming Guild challenge: to "interpret" a state in a quilt, and to use red, white, and blue in "a noticeable amount."

I will base mine on this picture of me, about 11, at the beach:


TMOTH seems to have color-corrected that one; this is a close-up of the same photo in the current coloration:


He also started scanning our other old pictures. This is one of my favorites - my mom (far left) with some other relatives and their dolls:


Take a good look at that doll she's holding in her right hand. Here's a close-up if you're not horrified enough:


Most. Hideous. Doll. EVER.

This is me, age 6, as an angel:


I love old pictures - I just need to remember to ask Mom who the heck else is in them.